1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a vehicle headlamp operable to emit one beam when using a plurality of reflectors supporting their respective light sources. More particularly, the present invention relates to a vehicle headlamp using the plurality of reflectors which has reduced vertical dimensions and can be aimed with ease.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a vehicle headlamp, two reflectors supporting their respective light sources are often used to emit one beam.
For example, an automotive headlamp needs to be adapted to turn part of the beam to the right or left with respect to the main optical axis when the steering wheel is turned to follow a curved road in order to irradiate the route ahead. Consequently, an attempt has been made to effect this arrangement such that one of the reflectors is set to irradiate the direction of the main optical axis at all times, whereas the other reflector is pivoted to the right or left when the steering wheel is turned to ensure that the route ahead is irradiated.
The automotive headlamps include an aiming adjustment for adjusting the direction in which a beam is emitted.
In the conventional automotive headlamp designed to emit one beam by using two reflectors as stated above, the two reflectors have been incorporated separately into a lamp body. Consequently, the aiming adjustment has to be made separately with respect to the two reflectors. Having to adjust the aim of the headlamp for each reflector is often troublesome.
As one unified beam emission has to be carried out by the two reflectors in the conventional vehicle headlamp, the relative angular relation between the optical axes of the two reflective surfaces needs to be accurately regulated.
However, it is extremely difficult to achieve the consistency between the beams emitted from the two reflectors in the case where the two reflectors can be subjected to angular adjustment separately with respect to the lamp body. Therefore, much time is usually required to achieve the necessary consistency therebetween.
Further, in the conventional vehicle headlamp, an arrangement of two reflectors side by side in the lateral direction tends to considerably increase the lateral size of the vehicle headlamp since a large space is required to allow the reflector designed to swing the beam. In addition, there still exists a problem arising from the fact that consistency between the beams emitted from the two reflectors is hardly achievable because the optical axes of the two reflectors cross each other in the horizontal direction.
An arrangement of two reflectors side by side in the vertical direction tends to increase the vertical size of the vehicle headlamp and this results in not only deteriorating the external appearance of the vehicle, but also making it difficult to use this type of headlamp in an automobile having a front-end portion that is small in vertical size.
A first object of the present invention is to provide a vehicle headlamp for use in emitting one beam by means of two reflectors supporting their respective light sources such that an aiming operation is performed with ease.
A second object of the present invention is to provide a vehicle headlamp adapted for use in emitting one beam by employing two reflectors supporting their respective light sources such that the vertical size of the vehicle headlamp can especially be reduced.
In order to achieve these objectives, a vehicle headlamp according to the invention comprises a lamp body including a hollow portion opening forward, a support member tiltably supported in the lamp body, and a plurality of reflectors supported side by side in one of the vertical and lateral directions by the support member, each reflector being made to support a corresponding light source, wherein at least one of the reflectors is pivotably supported by the support member in the horizontal direction.
In the vehicle headlamp according to the invention, as the reflectors are supported by one support member, which is tiltably supported by the lamp body, the reflectors are simultaneously tilted by the same amount in the same direction with respect to the lamp body by tilting the support member, so that an aiming adjustment can simultaneously be made to the reflectors. When the reflectors are supported by the support member in such a manner that the relative angular relation between the optical axes of the reflectors has been set consistent with the relation between the beams emitted from the reflectors, moreover, the aiming adjustment will be carried out by tilting the support member. As such, it is unnecessary to adjust the angular relation between the optical axes of the two reflectors again.
In another embodiment of the invention, a vehicle headlamp comprises two reflectors disposed side by side in the vertical direction and the entire upper reflector of the two reflectors is operable to affect luminous distribution.
In explanation, in the vehicle headlamp according to this embodiment, a portion of the upper reflector that does not affect luminous distribution is removed from the reflector, therefore only the portion of the upper reflector that affects luminous distribution remains. Accordingly, the lower reflector can be disposed in the portion thus removed, whereby the size of the vehicle headlamp in the vertical direction is reducible.